sacrificial

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   relating to, offered in, or used for a religious or ritual sacrifice

   The excavators found animal bones beside a carved sacrificial dish.

2. 2
   adj

   designed or chosen to be lost, consumed, or damaged so that something else is protected or achieved

   A sacrificial coating corrodes in place of the metal beneath it.

From Latin sacrificialis, from sacrificium ("sacrifice"), built from sacer ("sacred") + facere ("to make, do"). Technical uses retain the idea that one thing is deliberately given up for another.

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